Australia sweats in heatwave lifting bushfire risk to highest danger level in some states, amid El Nino

Large swathes of Australia sweltered on Sunday in a heatwave, the nation’s weather forecaster said, raising bushfire risk in an already high-risk fire season amid an El Nino weather pattern.

Heatwave alerts at “extreme” level, the highest danger rating, were in place for a second day for parts of Western Australia and were extended to South Australia, while areas of Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory were under “severe” warnings, the weather forecaster said.

It cautioned that in Western Australia, the nation’s largest state, the remote Pilbara and Gascoyne areas could hit the high 40 degrees Celsius on Sunday.

About 1,500 kilometres north of the state capital Perth, in the Pilbara mining town of Paraburdoo, a maximum temperature of 48 degrees was forecast, more than seven degrees above the average January maximum, according to forecaster data. It was 31.1 degrees there at 6:30amlocal time.

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On the east coast, parts of New South Wales’ capital, Sydney, were forecast on Sunday to reach 40 degrees, almost 10 degrees above the average January maximum.

The hot, dry conditions raised the risk of bushfires in some areas, the weather forecaster said, as Australia endures an El Nino weather event, typically associated with extreme phenomena such as wildfires, cyclones and droughts.

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